Well I just got home from a week long trip traveling around the Waterton Lakes National Park and Glacier National Park, and have been trying to sort through the hundreds of pictures I took on the journey. Quite funny actually, out of around 500 pictures I like about 20 of them.. I find its quite hard to actually tell which ones turned out best until you can get home and see them on the bigger screen, but I'm happy I did manage to get some decent shots. I used my circular polarizer filter a lot more than usual which I think helped, and also starting using more modes on my camera (Aperture Priority to open up the iris further, Shutter priority for 1/500 speed flash sync etc).

The scenery around these areas is beautiful, especially the color of the lakes and rivers. I got to see a lot of animals too, including a black bear with two baby cubs, and a grizzly bear on the side of the road. I also got to go to the Calgary zoo, and see a few small towns in Montana.

I actually ran into some trouble trying to come back from Montana at the Canadian Border Control, since I didn't have any proof I was legally allowed in Canada. I was hoping they would just give me the usual visitor visa, but since my working holiday visa ran out back in December 2008 the guy got really worked up and said I was arrestable, and was trying to send me back to New Zealand @_@. I'm currently trying to get Permanent Residence here, but since I didn't get my paperwork in until a couple of months after my visa expired, I was living in Canada illegally for that amount of time. Very luckily for me, once he calmed down he agreed to give me a six month visitor visa, since Canadian Immigration had accepted my paperwork even though I wasn't legal in the country anymore. So it all worked out for the best in the end, I just had a hell of a fright thinking I was going to be sent back home.

I'm slowly posting up some pictures from the trip, hope you like them